Could a Major Iran Nuclear Deal Happen?

I love that the snap consensus on nearly any foreign policy news of the day turns out to be lacking the nuanced information that the real players have.  When Obama announced that he was pulling Bush's plan for an Eastern European missile shield, the snap reaction was that it was done to placate Russia and gain leverage for sanctions on Iran and that it was a huge concession with no guarantee of results.  The reality turned out to be that not only was Obama barely changing the status quo on the missile shield - he still plans to have missile interceptors in Poland - but that rather than tougher new sanctions, the plan was a deal with important concessions on both sides and, despite the "setback" that Russia wouldn't agree to new sanctions - Russia plays a huge role in the deal.  It is creative diplomacy in other words, rather than a strict adherence to a failed plan.

While it is still too early to know how things will turn out (see above) - the deal hasn't been agreed to after all - the major concessions seem to be that the 5+1 group (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany) - implicitly (but not explicitly) endorses Iran's right to enrich uranium in violation of their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in exchange for a deal where Iran exports 75-80% of its enriched uranium to Russia and France to be further enriched for use in a medical reactor, which would make it unusable for bomb making.  As Spencer Ackerman points out: "This would represent the first time that anyone has succeeded in putting time back on the Iranian nuclear clock. It would be a major diplomatic victory for Obama, and for the Forces Of Good in general."

Even better, it would give both sides an opportunity to demonstrate good faith for tougher issues ahead.  It seems clear that despite the hand wringing about how the Iranian election would be bad for the process by making it difficult for the international community to negotiate with a government with questionable legitimacy, Obama's careful approach has paid dividends.  If Juan Cole is right, and Iran's real goal is peaceful nuclear power with nuclear latency - the so called "Japanese option" - then this would be step one towards a nuclear Iran the world can live with.  My hope that this deal will allow time for an Israel-Palestine peace summit in the interim before Iran could possibly rebuild its nuclear stockpile to a level where it could make a bomb.